Can We Keep It?
by Llampaca Eating Guppy
Summary: Damian finds a dog, but will Jack let it stay? Can they handle puppy antics and cuteness? And will Damian ever decide on a name? Who knows?
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings: Jack is a diva (but hey,that's hardly news). And… I'm not sure, maybe mentioned animal neglect/abuse? But not particularly… Little Pupper is just a little worse for wear in the beginning. And I'm throwing OOC in there too, because they're off arrangements and sane.**

 **…**

It looked like some sort of undead thing. No, that wasn't accurate. Damian could have literally broken into a pyramid, stolen a mummified animal, revived it with some creepy voodoo, and brought it back to the bey park and it would have looked better. It stared back at him with one dark, bulbous eye; the other was pale and glossed over. Jack instinctively backed away. "What is that?"

Damian cradled it, allowing the ragged, likely parasite-ridden animal to climb under his chin. "He's a puppy, Jack. I found him in a dumpster."

"And why," Jack started, trying to resist the urge to swat the potential threat to Damian's health away from him, "were you in a dumpster?"

"I wasn't in the dumpster until I heard him crying," Damian told him as if that were the most obvious thing in the world and scratched behind its ear.

Jack sighed and ran his hand through his hair. There was so much wrong with this situation. He had been gone for five minutes- _five minutes_! How had Damian managed to wander off, find a dumpster, and procure an animal that looked as if it was about to fall apart? "Right, how stupid of me. First of all, animals don't cry." Damian tried to say something, but he ignored it. "Second, _please_ get that thing away from you before it gives you a disease."

Damian gave him a frustrated look before he shifted his hold on the dog so it was pressed against his torso. It was still closer that Jack would have liked, but at least it wasn't so near his face. "Look, at least give me a ride to the vet."

Jack crossed his arms. "I would sooner send Befall through my own kneecap than let that thing in our car."

"Jack, come on! He's hurt and it'll take me forever to walk there. We'll just drop him off so they can patch him up and you'll never have to see him again. I'll even clean the car once we get back if it makes you feel better. Please."

The 'please' was enough for him to make his decision, but he still pressed his lips into a firm scowl. "And you'll be on dishwashing duty for a week?"

"Deal," Damian agreed and practically ran to the car. Jack rolled his eyes and followed him.

"If that thing gets fleas in our car, I will murder you in your sleep."

…

Damian laughed and gently pushed the puppy away from his face. "You're a cuddly little buddy, aren't you?"

The only answer he got was the licking switching from his face to his fingers.

He pulled himself up so that he was sitting on the couch rather than being sprawled across it, and his new friend wobbled over and flopped onto his thigh. Damian smiled and scratched a patch of fur behind his ear.

He looked a lot better. His fur was clean, although there wasn't much of it. Chunks of it had fallen out on its own, and the vet had needed to shave more off, but it would grow back. His bad eye had been removed and they had amputated the lower part of one his front legs, but he was moving around okay and seemed happy. He leaned into the scratch, tongue rolling out of his mouth.

Damian cautiously picked him up and lifted him back up near his face. The puppy licked his nose once, tail wagging furiously, before he lifted his head and perked up his ears.

A moment later, Damian heard it, too. The car. Jack was back from his little excursion to the arts and crafts store. Damian glanced at the door that Jack would soon walk through, then back to the puppy, then the door again. He had been hoping for a little more time to figure out a way to explain things without getting his head ripped off.

Said puppy, oblivious to Damian's plight and jealous of the attention, pawed at Damian's face.

"Hey! Careful, you have sharp claws," he told him lightly. Damian set him on the floor and went outside. Hopefully the shopping had put Jack in an outrageously good mood and he would at least be able to explain what was going on.

Jack spun around when he heard the door, plastic bags swinging from both his arms. "Damian! Come and make yourself useful so I don't have to make two trips." He practically threw a bag at him and started babbling about what he had bought this time.

Damian pretended to listen, trying to figure out a way to ease into this conversation.

"What's on your shirt?"

He glanced down. The small bits of tan fur stuck out like a sore thumb against the black fabric. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, yeah, about that…"

Jack's expression went from ecstatic to murderous in under a second. "You didn't."

Damian opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. It wasn't until Jack swung the door open and it hit the puppy that he found his voice. "Jack, be careful!" He gently scooped up the puppy. "He's still fragile from having operations done and-"

"What have you done?"

"It's not what it looks like."

"Oh, really? Well that's good, because it looks like you've brought that monstrosity back into our house!"

"Look," he rushed, "the vet can't keep him with them and the animal shelter is already overcrowded and he'd get put down really fast. It's just until either the shelter has more room or someone wants to adopt him from us, I swear-"

Jack shook his head with a patronizing chuckle. "Oh, Damian. Do you honestly think I'm going to believe that? No, this is what would happen: if that thing stayed here for so much as a week, you would get pathetically attached to it and wouldn't part with it even if we did find someone that wanted it, leaving us stuck with it forever." He looked at the puppy as if its very existence offended him. "So get it out."

"Jack-"

"No."

Damian looked at the puppy and scratched him behind the ear.

"Look at you. You're getting attached to it already."

"I know." His shoulders slumped. "Can't we at least give him a test run.? I'll take care of him."

"Putting off getting rid of it will only make things harder."

It didn't sound as harsh as Damian expected it to. He saw the window and decided to jump through it. "Just give him a chance. You might like him."

"I don't like animals, Damian," Jack sighed.

"One month, come on. Please."

Jack studied him, then the puppy, and crossed his arms. "One week."

"Two weeks."

Jack looked at the ceiling as if it had the answers to his problems. Based off of his expression, it either didn't, or gave him an answer he didn't like. "Fine. It can stay for two weeks. But don't expect any sympathy from me when you're sobbing your eyes out because your precious animal is gone."

…

 **A/N: Behold! I, the one with too many things to work on, got yet another idea that I couldn't resist. Dang me, this is getting ridiculous.** **In my defense, I'm not planning on this being very long. And I'm working on my other stuff... kinda. Slowly. Painfully slowly. I'm sorry. Maybe some day I'll manage to get back into the swing of a set writing schedule. Man, those were the days. I got so much done! Hahaha ha ha... ha. Yeah. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, but even if you didn't, I still had fun writing it.**

 **I don't own beyblade. If I did, there would be an outrageous amount of screen time for minor characters.**


	2. Chapter 2

Damian had no idea what he was doing.

The last time he had any attachment to one dog in particular was when he was little, before all Hades had broken loose and the Ziggurat fiasco started. He would spend more time at family events playing with his cousin's german shepherd than interacting with relatives back then. Unfortunately, the useful information stored in those fuzzy memories was miniscule and he doubted that Jack was going to be any help.

At least he had Google.

What started as an innocent search of information about how to raise a puppy quickly fell into an all-out name hunt. Whether or not Jack let Puppy stay, he needed to have a name while he was here, and Damian was nothing if not horrible at naming things.

"Top 100 most popular male and female dog names" had sounded promising. The only thing that stuck out to him was that Jack was in the top 10 for male dogs.

Probably shouldn't mention that to Jack.

Damian studied the puppy curled up on his bed. Jack tended to name things based off of properties, so maybe that would work? What did this puppy do? He chewed on things, and ate a lot, and ran around.

Damian made a disappointed sound. Puppy's ears perked up and he looked at him. They were shaped like triangles, maybe Dorito? Doritos were triangles.

This was not going well. He buried his face into the mattress and raked his brain to come up with something halfway decent.

"Damian!"

The tone was enough to make him jump. Was Jack still mad at him?

It wasn't until he got up to see what was wrong that he noticed that the spot where Puppy had been sleeping on the floor was empty.

 _Oh, no_.

Damian found him in the living room with Jack, who was holding the remains of a paintbrush between to fingers. "Look at what it did."

Damian could practically see fire in his eyes. "Um, sorry?"

Jack took a long moment to glare at both of them, then sighed and stalked into the kitchen.

Puppy tried to follow him, but Damian grabbed him and carried him outside. "Probably not the best idea you've ever had, little guy."

Maybe there was more to that whole "you need to puppy proof your house" spiel on that one website than he had previously thought. He read the entire article again and made a mental list of things he needed to fix.

…

The moment they went back inside, Damian went on a cleaning rampage.

That in itself wasn't anything unusual. Their cleaning schedule essentially consisted of not doing anything until the mess was too much for one of them to be able to stand any more. Admittedly, Jack tended to snap first, but he wasn't surprised. Things had gotten impressively bad over the time he had been slaving away on his latest masterpiece.

A few hours later, when he walked past Damian attacking the floor under his bed with a broom, Jack was concerned.

"Damian," he walked into the room without a second thought. The door was wide open, a signal for free entry. "What are you doing?"

Damian paused his assault. "Making sure that there's nothing under here that he can get into."

"Who can get into?" Jack asked. As if in answer, Damian's puppy popped out from under the bed and jumped around him. "Oh, that thing."

"Yep. He really seems to like you."

"Joy," Jack muttered and nudged it away with his foot. It just came right back. "How do I make it stop?"

"I don't know. Ignore him, maybe? Getting a dog not to like me has never been something I've wanted to do. You're supposed to be trying to get along with him, remember?"

Jack laughed. "Oh please, if you seriously think I'm going to make an effort to get attached to it, you don't know me nearly as well as I thought you did."

Damian shrugged. "Yeah, well, you didn't think much of me at first either, and look how that turned out." He turned around and shoved the broom back under the bed.

Jack massaged his temples. "When did I become the voice of reason?"

…

It had been a long day, and as happy as Damian was that he had somehow managed to con Jack into keeping Puppy for at least a little while, he just wanted to sleep. Puppy, unfortunately, had other ideas.

Damian groaned and buried his head in his pillow. "Come on, little buddy. We need Jack to like you, and you're not doing yourself any favors."

As expected, reasoning with him didn't work and the whining and scratching at the crate's door continued. Damian glared into the darkness for a few more moments before he dragged himself out of bed, muttering under his breath.

They went outside first. The last thing Damian wanted was to wake up with a mess on his bed. Surprisingly, Puppy actually did sniff the ground, circle a few times, and take care of his business.

"Good boy," Damian told him with a pat on the head. Then he went back to bed and set Puppy on top of the covers. "This is just for tonight."

…

 **A/N: I still don't own MFB, so I just spend my days thinking of ways to sneak Beyblade jokes into ordinary conversations and yelling at myself for getting new ideas when I refuse to work on the ones I already have. Yayy.**

 **And seriously, Damian and I both have no name picked out for Puppy. My sister, very thoughtfully, suggested Pinecone. Why? I have no idea.**


	3. Chapter 3

Jack ignored it. He saw it, certainly, there wasn't room for him to completely avoid a puppy, but he did his best. Leave it alone and it will leave you alone, and all that.

Still, they were three days in and he didn't know if it was going to work. He could excuse the lack of house training, as that was temporary, but it tried to lick him, which was disgusting.

And it got fur _everywhere_. It barely even had fur; how was it shedding so much? How much fur would it leave in its wake when it was covered in fur? Admittedly, Damian's vow to keep things puppy-safe kept the mess far more under control than ever before, so that counteracted the incessant shedding somewhat, but it still got on his clothes.

The click of claws on linoleum reached his ears. He took another sip of coffee and pushed his chair away from the table. "Hello, Creature."

He needed to call it something, and Damian either hadn't named it yet or hadn't bothered to tell him its name. Creature didn't mind. It simply sat by his feet and stared at him.

Strange, where was Damian? It didn't usually seek him out. He glanced at the pizza crust on the table. "Just because Damian gives you his food doesn't mean I will."

It started bouncing around. Jack rolled his eyes. "I told you no."

Creature, apparently, thought that "no" meant "come sit in my lap." It jumped onto him without warning, which made multiple things happen. Jack flailed with a startled squeak, spilled hot coffee everywhere, dropped the mug with a string of profanities, and pushed the puppy off him and scrambled away from the mess. "Now look what you did! You shouldn't jump on people like-"

The words died in his throat when Creature ran under the table as if the devil himself were chasing it. Jack knelt down to look and found it under one of the chairs. Was it hurt? He glanced at the mug on the floor. It hadn't shattered, so it couldn't have stepped on glass. The coffee could have burned it, he supposed, but it wasn't _that_ hot-

Wait. Damian had mentioned something about surgeries and it still being fragile, hadn't he? How fragile was fragile?

"Damian," he called. After a few seconds with no answer, he stood and checked through the house. Damian wasn't home. Of course, just leave a fragile, three-legged, one-eyed animal with Jack, because he _loved_ animals and _always_ knew how to deal with them. What could go wrong?

What was he even supposed to do? How was he going to explain this? He hadn't meant to hurt it!

When he went back to the kitchen, fully prepared to snatch his phone off the table and call the vet, Creature was out from under the table and sniffing the coffee.

"No-" Jack hurriedly grabbed it by the midsection and placed it a few feet away from the mess as gently as he could- "don't lick that. You have enough energy without caffeine."

He grabbed a towel and started wiping up the spill. It watched him for a few moments before walking in front of him.

Jack allowed himself a relieved smile. "Well, at least you seem to be moving around fine." He gently stroked its back. "Try not to scare me like that, okay?"

Creature licked his hand.

"Ew!"

…

If he was being honest with himself, Damian knew housetraining was going so well because Puppy was practically always either supervised or home alone in his crate. It definitely wasn't going so well because Puppy was just that smart, if teaching him tricks was any indication.

"Come on, sit," he said for the umpteenth time, hovering a treat over Puppy's nose like he had read on countless websites. Put a treat in front of a dog's nose, move it over their head, and then they just sit right down.

Or not. Puppy craned his neck to keep staring at it standing up. Why? Damian had no idea. It looked uncomfortable.

"Maybe you're doing something wrong," Jack said from where he was curled up on the couch. He was theoretically scribbling something in a sketchbook, although it looked to Damian like he was paying more attention to his inability to get Puppy to sit on command.

"Oh, because you could obviously do better," Damian snapped and dropped the treat. Puppy scarfed it down as if it was nothing. He wasn't even sure if he chewed it.

"I'm not saying I can, I'm just saying that neither of us really know what we're doing. You might want to try talking to somebody with more dog experience."

That got Damian's attention. Jack had never made constructive comments about Puppy before. "I thought about taking him to puppy school, but I don't want to pay for it unless I know I can keep him."

"That's fair," Jack said as if it were no big deal and started drawing again. "What about somewhere free? You could talk to other dog people."

"Oh, yeah, with my incredible people skills," he deadpanned.

The corners of Jack's mouth twitched up. "I think you can do it. Everyone sounds stupid when they talk about their dogs. You'll fit right in."

"Thanks, Jack. That's a real confidence booster."

"I know," Jack replied smugly. Puppy jumped onto the couch and sat next to him. "Hey, what- no, shoo." He tried to nudge him away, but he just came back. "What do you think you're doing? Go see Damian, he actually likes you. No, that's the exact opposite of shoo- Damian, help me out here!"

Maybe he shouldn't have, but Damian laughed at the single-sided argument anyways.

...

 **A/N: I wasn't going to post this yet, but I've gotten sick (again), and I could really use the happy feelings that come with posting, so here we are. Sorry if it's not as proofread or good as it could be**

 **I don't own Beyblade and it's sad**


	4. Chapter 4

Damian's process of realizing he was sick was very specific. He usually went to bed feeling fine, maybe a little weird at most. Some time during the night, he would start having incrisingly fragmented, disturbing dreams, and when he woke up, he realized that he felt like he had been hit by a bus. This time, however, there was one key difference: there was a puppy licking his face. "That's… really not helping, little guy."

He dragged himself out of bed, set puppy on the floor, and took him outside. It felt like it was frigidly cold outside of his bed and his head felt like someone had popped it open and replaced his brain with cotton balls. When he went back to bed, Puppy lay on his back.

"Stop that. You're not helping." He rolled onto his side to get him off. Puppy curled up into a ball next to his head and whined. "I'll be fine. Just gotta rest, that's all. Don't worry."

…

Damian wasn't awake. Jack could tell, because everything was just as he left it last night. He knew what that probably meant, too. Early mornings at the academy every day for over half of his life had left Damian with an internal alarm clock that was seemingly unstoppable. And, considering it was almost noon and he had just finished making himself look presentable for the day, Damian should have been up and about for hours already. That was how it always was, and he didn't care for what the lack of Damian implied at all.

A soft, shuffling sound came from the living room. Jack looked up from his cereal to find Damian pale, shivering, and wrapped in a blanket. He was right, then.

Damian paid him no mind, just trudged past him to Creature's bowl and put a scoop of food in it. Creature began to devour it without hesitation. He then turned around and collapsed into the chair across from Jack at the table.

"What are you doing?"

"Sitting." Even his voice sounded weak.

"Yes, I can see that, but why?"

"He'll need to go out after he eats." Damian nodded at Creature. The statement almost seemed to make him deflate even more, as if the very idea exhausted him.

Jack shook his head. "Not happening. You need to be in bed."

"I'm fine."

"Are you?" He walked around the table and put his wrist to Damian's warm forehead. "You look like death and you're feverish. How is that 'fine,' exactly?" Damian responded with a pitifully ineloquent groan and let his head rest against the table. The sounds of Creature's feeding frenzy ceased. He dragged himself back to his feet and headed back towards the door, Creature hot on his heels. "Okay, seriously? This is ridiculous even for you."

"He can't not go out, Jack."

"Fine, then, I'll do it." Jack snatched the leash out of his hands. "Just take your germ-infested self back to your room and stay there."

Damian somehow managed to gather up enough energy to look surprised. "Are you sure? I told you that I would-"

"Stop. You're not taking care of the dog when you can barely have a conversation. I'll do it."

Damian stared at him. "You'll tell me if something goes wrong?"

"Of course."

"And you won't just leave him somewhere to get rid of him faster?"

"No." Honestly, it hurt a little that Damian thought that was a possibility, but he let it drop.

"And you know that-"

"Bed, Hart," he commanded and pointed to the hall.

"Okay, okay. You win." Jack attached Creature's leash to its collar. It wasn't particularly easy, with the way it was wiggling around. "Thanks."

"For what? Not wanting to get myself sick? That's hardly anything worthy of your gratitude." He left before Damian could reply, Creature running out in front of him.

Walking Creature proved to be… interesting. It haphazardly darted around, stopped to smell things, and overall seemed to be actively trying to tangle his legs in the leash and make him trip. But the last thing he wanted was for it to go running through the house leaving destruction in its wake later, so he kept going in hopes that the walk would tire it out a bit.

It seemed to work. When they returned home, Damian wasn't anywhere to be seen, thankfully. Jack had been worried about that; he knew the extent of Damian's stubbornness. Creature walked straight to its water bowl and whined. Jack almost scolded it, but then he noticed it was empty, so he filled it instead. Creature drank and curled up into a ball on the couch. He left it there to go paint.

…

When Jack finally regained his sense of time, it was because Creature stepped on his foot. The nap seemed to have fully rejuvenated it. It jumped around as if it was some sort of furry, living bouncy ball, tripped, hit his nightstand, and a empty soda can fell to the floor. Creature sprang up and chased it. The loud, clattering sound of the can being struck and rolled around echoed through Jack's head as he watched the spectacle. It almost seemed to be more cat-like behavior to him. Maybe Creature was species-confused.

The sheer absurdity of the thought made him chuckle to himself. He grabbed Creature and carried him to the hall, shutting the door behind him. Then he went to the kitchen for some food. Creature followed him while jumping around his legs, getting under his feet, and overall being a nuisance. After all the walking they had done earlier that day, he didn't even notice that much.

There was a puddle on the kitchen floor. He stopped and looked at it for a moment before turning his attention back towards Creature. "Really?" He asked it. It didn't answer, and he didn't expect it to. He wasn't even sure why he asked. At least it had the decency to have gone in the kitchen as opposed to the carpet.

…

 **A/N: Will these two ever learn to get along? Stay tuned to find out!**

 **And THANK YOU SO MUCH all of you guys who hoped that I would feel better after my last chapter. It meant the world to me. I am doing a lot better now, so that's good. With the way my health's been kicking me in the shins lately, though, I'm pretty much just waiting to see what's gonna be next. Hopefully nothing, but I've had such bad luck this summer that I don't know if that's possible haha. But hey! Gotta look on the bright side, I'm still alive and can write.**

 **I don't own Beyblade**


	5. Chapter 5

Creature was curled up next to where Jack rested on the couch. After pushing it off of him who-knew-how-many times, it had finally decided to sleep next to him instead of on him. He hardly considered it ideal, but he took what he could get. It snored just a tiny bit, if it could even be called a snore. It was more of a slow, rhythmic whining noise. Breathe in, _wheeze_. Breath in, _wheeze_. It was annoying, true, but better than awake and wreaking mayhem. He was surprised that it didn't bother Damian, with as light of a sleeper he was.

It let out a particularly long, loud breath and stretched. For a moment, Jack was worried it would wake up, but it settled back down again, now sprawled across the cushion. It looked far less ratty than it did when Damian had found it, despite being short a limb and an eye. He couldn't count all the ribs on its side any more, and its bald spots were beginning to cover over with fuzz. If it wasn't for the knowledge that Creature would turn into a real-life gremlin when it woke up, it would have almost been cute.

"You two seem to be getting along pretty well," Damian said from the hall. He still looked like he was halfway to starting the zombie apocalypse, but at least he was smiling.

He crossed his arms with a huff. "Don't get too excited. This thing's been a nightmare. I'll take what I can get of it sitting still."

Damian's smile, for some bizarre reason, widened. "Was he?"

Jack nodded. "It chewed on my shoe and the pillows, and then dragged them all over the house when I tried to take them. And it's constantly getting under my feet, like it wants me to step on it-"

"Yeah, he does that." Damian laughed. "He just likes you, that's all. Do you want me to take him back with me for the night? It'll give you a break."

"That would be amazing." He sank into the back of the couch. Finally, a few hours where he wouldn't need to always have one eye open. Damian was about to pluck Creature off of the couch when a thought occurred to him. "Did you eat today?"

Damian froze. "Um, no?" he replied sheepishly.

"Have you tried?"

"No."

Jack let out a frustrated sigh and stood up. "You should eat something. I think we have some crackers." He kept talking on his way to the kitchen, knowing that Damian would still be able to hear him. "And you better not just feed them to the dog, either, understand?"

"Yeah, yeah. You are the angriest mother hen to exist, you know that?"

"I am not a mother hen."

"Yes you are." Damian's voice turned high and squeaky. "Don't walk the dog, you're sick. Go to bed. Did you eat?"

"Do you want the crackers or not?"

Damian ended up taking the crackers and Creature back to his room.

…

The next morning, Damian had no idea what was going on, but apparently it was hilarious. Which was impressive, considering that Jack was not even remotely a morning person. He could hear Jack laughing from where he had been once again banished to his room for the day. For someone who had once eaten an entire bowl of dropped candy corn off the floor, he was surprisingly paranoid about germs when they involved something contagious. He was almost curious enough to investigate, but half of the things that made Jack laugh that hard were usually either at Damian's expense or art jokes that he didn't get, so he decided against it.

He ended up finding out anyways when Jack started to blow up his phone.

 _Are you awake?_

 _Please say you're awake_

 _This is hilarious you need to see this_

 _Damian Damian Damiaaaaaaan did you die?_

Damian chuckled to himself. _No_ , he typed out. _What's_ _so_ _funny_?

 _Your dog is an idiot_

Oh, no. That was a red flag if he ever saw one. _And that means?_

 _Okay so you know that video with the cat that was in a square of tape and didn't know it could just walk over? Or maybe it was a dog I don't remember_

 _Um, i think so?_ He replied _._

 _I decided to try it…_

The next thing he received was a video of Puppy circling around in a rectangle of blue tape with Jack's laughter in the background. With the current context, it sounded more like a cackle.

Damian was storming to the living room in an instant. "Jackson Flipping Clownface, quit antagonizing him!"

He rounded the corner to the living room to find Jack curled up on the couch completely unruffled by the outburst. Puppy was still inside the tape boundaries and circling the perimeter, apparently still baffled. "You and I both know that isn't my full name."

"It might as well be," he snapped back and pulled a piece of the tape off. Puppy came bouncing out, happy as a clam.

"Honestly, Damian, it could have gotten out whenever it wanted."

"Yeah, but he didn't know that." He pointed at Puppy to emphasize his point, who sniffed his finger, decided it wasn't interesting, and jumped onto the couch next to Jack.

"Oh yes, it's clearly been traumatized," Jack deadpanned. "It was just a little fun, Damian. It's not like I was hurting it."

"I know." Damian pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's just that- I don't know." He let out a frustrated huff.

Jack smiled at him. "Don't worry. You're always overreacting to things when you're sick."

"Tch, that's a gem coming from you. But just try to be nice to him, okay?"

"Okay, I'll be nice." He patted Puppy on the head. "See?"

"Thanks." He went back to his room.

 **…**

 **A/N: Well golly gee, look at that! I did an update. It's a short one, but it's something.**

 **Anyways, hope you enjoyed, I don't own Beyblade, the usual stuff.**


	6. Chapter 6

Creature was significantly more difficult to keep track of outside the kitchen, where carpet muffled the sound if its claws. Jack had learned this very quickly yesterday and he had no intention of doing that again. He wasn't in the mood to do much of anything, let alone perpetually keep one eye on the dog.

Unfortunately, his sense of laziness kept him from getting to his planned solution until after noon, when Creature decided that Damian's shoelaces were the most delicious thing in the known universe. He sent Damian a text saying that they were going out, latched Creature's leash to its collar, and began the long falling hazard of a walk to the pet store. Theoretically, he could have driven, but it was close enough that he couldn't justify putting Creature in his car.

He worried that the pet store would be something out of a nightmare, overflowing with unsupervised animals and people who had more pets than humans in their lives. Luckily, the only animal he saw that wasn't for sale was a well-trained dog that looked more like a stuffed animal than a real one. It was quiet enough there that Jack let his guard down, which led to Creature circling his legs unnoticed while he looked at the collars. When he tried to move farther down the aisle, he fell flat on his face.

"Ow," he complained. Creature jumped onto his legs. "Ha-ha, very funny. I hope you're proud of yourself."

"Are you okay?" A girl in an employee's apron poked her head out from the next aisle over.

"I'm fine," Jack untangled his legs and dusted himself off. "This one's a handful, that's all." He nodded at Creature, who started chewing on a price tag. "Hey, don't eat that! They'll make me pay for it."

She laughed. "Don't worry. He's not the first one to do that. We have some chew toys that are really good for teething puppies if you want some, though, and we offer puppy classes on the weekends."

Jack's attention snapped from trying to pull the tag out of Creature's mouth to what she just said. Damian had mentioned something about obedience training, hadn't he? "How much do those classes cost?"

"The full socialization and obedience training package is around $200."

No wonder Damian didn't want to pay for it unless he knew Creature was staying around. "What about those chew toys?"

He ended up in the checkout with not only his intended purchase of a collar with a bell, but also a ball. It supposedly held food inside of it and dropped pieces while the dog knocked it around. Considering the way Creature chased his soda can like a cat and how much it loved food, he couldn't help but buy it.

When they left, a huge dog was drinking from a bowl of water that the store kept near the door. A man and a little boy stood next to it, which was both comical and disconcerting, since the dog looked big enough to be able to swallow the boy whole. Creature tugged at the leash towards them. Jack almost dragged it away, but it was panting a lot, they still had to walk back, and it was fairly hot outside, so he waited until the behemoth of a dog went inside and then let Creature go to the bowl.

He regretted it the moment he saw the contents. Strings of dog saliva floated around in the water. A cold shudder of revulsion ran down his spine as Creature lapped it up without a care in the world.

About halfway home, Creature started to lag behind. Jack stopped. "What's wrong? We're almost home, just a little-" Creature lay down. "Oh, come on. We can't just stop and nap here very well, you know."

Apparently, it didn't know, because it made absolutely no effort to get up when Jack gently nudged it with his foot. He let out a frustrated sigh. "Okay, you know what? Fine. But I'm not just going to stand here while you sleep in public." He slipped his arm through the handles of the shopping bag and carefully lifted Creature to try to hold it. It didn't seem to mind when Damian carried it around, so hopefully he wouldn't be any different.

It was awkward at first, considering he had no idea what he was doing. After Creature stopped wiggling and at least seemed comfortable, Jack started walking towards home again. "I swear, if you tell Damian about this you'll be out on the street. I don't care if I did say you could stay for two weeks."

Damian ended up finding out anyways, since he was eating cereal in the kitchen when Jack opened the door with Creature still in his arms.

"This is not what it looks like, so don't get any ideas," he snapped before Damian could say anything and put Creature down on the couch.

If Damian's grin had been any wider, his face would have split in half. "Hey, don't let me intrude on your bonding moment. I'll just go back to my room and-"

"There was no bonding moment," Jack said flatly and started rummaging through the drawers for scissors.

"Right," Damian said, not at all sounding convinced. "Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. What's in the bag, anyways?"

Jack pulled out the collar and dropped the bag by his feet away from Damian. It was brown, smooth, and although not nearly expensive enough to be actual leather, it looked close enough. Hopefully Damian wouldn't notice that it wasn't the only thing he bought.

"He already has one of those."

"Not like this one." He shook it and the small bell jingled. "Besides, it's prettier than that cheap thing you bought."

"That's practical! Why would I buy him expensive stuff when he's either going to grow out of it or eat it?"

Jack finally found scissors and cut the price tag off. "So it doesn't look more like a dingy street animal than it already does.".

Damian rolled his eyes. "He doesn't look like a dingy street animal. Now give me the collar, I want to see what it looks like on him."

Jack tossed it to him. Damian caught it and made a beeline for the couch, cereal forgotten. "There! It's on. Now do something, I want to see if the bell dings."

Jack glanced over to find Damian poking the poor animal. "Call me crazy, but I think it wants to sleep without your badgering."

"But he has a bell! It's going to be so cute!"

"Damian, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but it's not going anywhere anytime soon, so just go and get some rest."

Damian groaned. "I'm getting cabin fever after being in my room for two days. I feel better, honest."

Jack raised an eyebrow. Better? He no longer seemed to feel horrible, true, but he still looked exhausted if nothing else. "You can survive one more night of quarantine. Better doesn't always mean good."

Damian gave him an annoyed look. Jack crossed his arms. "Fine," he finally said and got up. He stopped in the hall. "Hey, sorry about flipping out at you this morning."

"Oh please, it's not like I never overreact to anything."

"Fair enough."

…

Jack did absolutely nothing for the rest of the day and into the night except stare at the TV screen and occasionally get up for food. It wasn't until he finished marathoning The Real Housewives of New Jersey that he noticed it was past midnight and Creature was still with him on the couch. Jack smiled to himself and rolled his eyes. Damian had felt better all right- he had probably passed out the moment he got back to his room. He would just have to drop Creature off before he went to bed.

He ended up overestimating how well reality TV shows would keep him awake and fell asleep sprawled across the couch instead. When his eyes fluttered open the next morning, something was on his leg. He grumbled and leaned up to see what it was. Creature was sleeping on his leg, just above the knee.

Before Jack had time to sort out how he felt about that, footsteps came towards the living room. Damian. Jack hurriedly flopped back down and closed his eyes.

The footsteps froze. Jack heard a snicker, and then Damian came towards him. "Hey, buddy. What do you think you're doing? Jack'll flip if he sees you using him as a pillow like that," he whispered and the weight lifted from his leg. "Crazy little thing. Come on, let's get you breakfast."

Damian must have carried Creature away, because the only footsteps Jack heard were Damian's. Honestly, the thing could walk on its own, it didn't need to be carried everywhere.

…

 **A/N:** **Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and hopefully you'll hear from me again soon. Ish. Soon-ish? Let's go with soon-ish. I can't really make any promises. Words are difficult and sometimes they hate me, you know? Although I'm trying to see if I can get out of my stuck point in Checkered, so I don't know if my next update will be for this or not.**


	7. Chapter 7

In the kitchen, Damian's foot met something round on his walk to the food bowl and he nearly dropped Puppy trying to catch himself.

"What in Hades?" He looked down to find a bag with the pet store's logo on the floor. It must have been the one that Jack had brought in yesterday- he had put away all of the ones from his pet supply purchases, since they were choking hazards- but why wasn't it empty? He put Puppy down and looked inside. It was a purple, hollow… ball? "What is this thing?" He picked it up. According to the brightly-colored label, it was supposed to hold food or small treats. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He _knew_ he didn't buy anything like this. "Oh yeah, Jack. You're not getting attached to him at all."

After he and Puppy came back home from their post-breakfast walk, Damian filled the ball half full and gave it to Puppy to play with while he made coffee. Hopefully the combined noise and smell would be enough to convince Jack to wake up.

Sure enough, he didn't even have to scroll on his phone for ten minutes before a zombified version of Jack shuffled towards the coffee pot. "Hey, Jack. That's a new look for you. What were you going for, the illegitimate child of Sleeping Beauty and an evil clown?"

Jack stopped and blinked at him. "What?"

Damian loved this brief time between Jack waking up and getting his caffeine fix. He could say practically anything and Jack wouldn't process it. "You fell asleep with your makeup on and you look ridiculous."

"Oh," he said blankly and started shuffling towards the coffee pot again. Damian let him have his coffee in as much peace as possible with the ruckus Puppy made chasing around after his new toy.

It was a few minutes before Jack spoke again. "Damian?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you make the coffee this morning?"

"Yes, yes I did."

"You had better not get me sick."

Puppy chose that moment to knock the ball into the kitchen and run headfirst into a table leg on his way after it. Damian tried not to laugh, but it only half-worked. "Are you okay down there, little buddy?"

Puppy answered by jumping back up and tearing off after his ball again. A few seconds later, he and the ball both went crashing against the cupboard under the sink.

"You dragged a sturdy little creature into this house."

He turned to find Jack watching the spectacle with a disinterested expression. "Yeah he is. I'm pretty sure if I ran headfirst into a wall I'd knock myself out."

"Not necessarily. Sometimes I swear your skull is made of concrete."

Puppy scrambled around the kitchen like he was inside a pinball machine a while longer before Damian noticed something. "Isn't that thing supposed to be dropping food?"

"He probably ate it all," Jack said with a shrug. "It was when I woke up."

"Well, at least he likes it."

"I thought he would."

Damian blinked. That… wasn't Jack's usual choice in pronouns. "You called him a he."

"I what?"

"You didn't say that you thought it would like it. You said you thought _he_ would like it."

Jack froze, and Damian swore that there was a hint of pink across his cheeks, although it was hard to tell through the smeared mess of makeup. "That doesn't mean anything," he finally said.

About five hours later, Puppy sat on Jack's lap while he was scribbling in his sketchbook, and all he did was give him an irritated glance and mutter something under his breath.

…

Jack heard Creature jumping onto the couch, but it was still a bit of a surprise when he plopped himself down onto his leg. "Stupid thing, Damian's not sick any more, you don't need my attention."

When the reprimand did nothing to dissuade Creature, he just rolled his eyes and turned back to his concept art. If he wanted to sit on him and be ignored, that was his problem.

"Say cheese!"

Jack stiffened at the distinct snap that Damian's phone made when it took a picture.

"I take it that didn't mean anything, either, right?" Gauging by how smug he sounded, Damian had already formed his own opinion. Jack threw a pillow at him. He caught it, laughed, and threw it back. "Is that how this is going to be, Jack?"

Unfortunately for him, he failed to notice that Jack was literally sitting on a pile of pillow fight ammunition. He nudged Creature off of him, pulled off one of the cushions, and swung it at Damian.

"Hey!" He squawked."That's not fair!"

Jack hit him again. "All's fair in a pillow fight, Hart."

"Oh, _is_ it now?" He tackled his legs. Jack toppled over with a yelp, and it wasn't long before Damian had him trapped in a headlock.

"Let me go, you cheating jerk!"

"Cheating? What happened to all's fair in a pillow fight?" Damian asked, feigning innocence.

"This isn't a pillow fight. You're not even using a pillow."

"One: neither were you, and two: I didn't even have one when you started hitting me."

A small chiming came from the couch. Creature's bell. He stretched with a yawn and looked at them with an expression that looked more curious than Jack realized animals were capable of feeling.

"Hey, puppy, you want to come see Jack?"

"No, no he doesn't."

"Aw, come on. You don't know that. He likes you. Come here, pupper." Damian made a kissy noise and Creature jumped off the couch and bounced towards them. He stopped right in front of Jack's face.

"I swear, Creature, if you lick me-"

Too late. Slimy animal tongue was on his cheek.

"EW! Damian make him stop!" Damian just laughed at him. He tried to squirm away, but it was no good; he wasn't going anywhere unless Damian let him. "Fine, you win. Just let me go already."

He did. Jack scrambled to his feet and wiped the saliva off his face. "That is absolutely disgusting."

He went to the bathroom to assess the damage done to his makeup with Damian's cackling following him down the hall. He had to completely redo his left eye.

…

 **A/N: (Boys, how many times do I have to tell you? No roughhousing in the house! You'll break something!)** **Remember when I said that hopefully you would hear from me soon-ish? Ahahaha sorry that didn't happen. I shouldn't say things like that, because… erm… obvious reasons. You probably won't hear from me again horribly soon, because 'tis the season for finals and having no time (I'm actually supposed to be working on something else instead of posting this right now shhhhhhh). Good times, am I right?**

 **Anyways, I don't own Beyblade, only too many half-finished ideas (I got a really fun idea for a Halloween AU, but.. 'tis not the season.. maybe next year) and the updating schedule of a broken lamp. Thanks for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

Jack found it at his and Damian's favorite soft serve ice cream place completely on accident. The cork board hung right next to the garbage cans, and the paper on the flyer was outlined in such a tasteless neon yellow that it was impossible not to see when he went to throw away his bowl. It held his attention, however, because it had a picture of Creature on it.

At least, he thought it was Creature. It was hard to tell, considering that the Creature-like puppy in the picture had all four limbs, both eyes, and a normal amount of fur. But he was the right color, the ears were the same shape, and he was doing the thing Creature did that almost looked like some sort of dopey dog-smile, and that was enough to make him skim over the information.

Name: Muffin- last seen on Pine Road- reward if found- please call Krista at- all pretty normal stuff to be on a lost dog flyer. The phone numbers were arranged vertically at the bottom of the paper and cut in strips so that they could be torn off. None of them were missing. The snobbish part of him thought that maybe it was because the paper was a downright offensive color, but he took one and slipped it in his pocket anyways.

Damian and Creature were still where he left them at the outdoor table farthest away from the building. It was Damian's favorite because he could sit with his back to the other tables and pretend they weren't there, and Jack didn't mind. Sitting across from him gave him the perfect vantage point to people watch.

Damian tossed Creature the remaining bottom of his waffle cone, which he consumed so quickly it was amazing that the animal didn't choke. He had grown quite fond of sweets thanks to Damian's sharing tendencies.

He went back inside and got himself another pistachio ice cream with sprinkles and caramel in a cup.

…

"I don't have any more food for you, you crazy thing," Damian told Puppy lightly and gave him a scratch behind his ear.

"Why is he on the table?"

He looked up to find Jack frowning at him with another sundae. "Because he climbed up here. Why? It's not like he's hurting anything."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Because if he thinks it's okay to climb onto the table here, he'll think that he can do it at home," he said, sounding exasperated.

"Fair enough." Damian picked him up and set him back on the ground next to him. The instant Jack sat down, Puppy was right by his feet, staring up at him.

"Shoo," he said without even bothering to look at him and nudged him with his foot. "I'm not your personal vending machine."

It didn't work, although he probably knew it wouldn't at this point. Damian almost felt bad about giving in and sharing his food so easily, since Puppy's begging tendencies seemed to genuinely annoy him, but he couldn't bring himself to resist that face.

Jack gouged his spoon into his ice cream and dug up a spoonful that he could barely get into his mouth. And did it again. And again.

"You're going to give yourself a brain freeze."

The only response was a look that practically screamed "don't tell me what to do." Damian drummed his fingers on the table and glanced at Puppy after he left. "How worried do you think we should be, Puppy?"

When Jack came back with a third bowl filled to the rim with green ice cream and topped off with a huge pile of toppings, Damian decided that being worried was reasonable. When he locked himself in his room the moment they came home, it got worse. Not that he particularly knew what to do about it. Jack was usually the one to fuss over his emotional well-being, not the other way around. He had issues and got upset, sure, but Damian almost always knew why. Jack was many things, but shy about his emotions was not one of them, so usually all he had to do was sit somewhere, nod, and maybe offer a sarcastic comment or two while Jack talked everything out of his system. Sometimes he tried to help keep Jack's alternative coping mechanisms to reasonable levels if it was really bad, but that wasn't hard. It mostly involved either convincing him to eat or hiding the candy, depending on whether he was dealing with stress-arting Jack or stress-eating Jack. But talking had always come first.

This time, it looked like Damian was going to have to initiate the conversation himself if he was going to do anything, and he wasn't sure how to go about that, or even if he should at all. Jack must not have wanted to talk about it, since he hadn't yet, but did that mean he shouldn't ask?

A while later, Jack left the kitchen with a bag of candy corn almost as big as his head and the question just came out. "Hey, are you okay?"

Jack froze, caught, before letting out a small sigh. "Mostly, yes. I just-" he stopped himself and made a frustrated noise. "I just saw something that put me in a bad mood, that's all."

"Must have been a doozy if you're planning to eat all of that." He nodded at the candy corn.

"Who said that I'm going to eat it all?"

Damian gave him a disapproving look. "You ate two bowls of ice cream so fast that I was getting a brain freeze just by watching you and you're acting weird. I would bet my right arm that you're going to eat all of that."

It was quiet and tense for a long moment. Jack would either start a fight or give in and talk next, Damian was fairly certain of that much. He just had no idea which one it would be.

The answer finally came. "You're not going to let this go, are you?" Jack asked, sounding tired.

"Not easily, no."

He muttered something under his breath, flopped onto the couch, and ripped open the bag. "You won't like it."

Damian sat on the other side. "I'll manage. Now spill it."

Jack managed to shove an entire handful of candy corn into his mouth in the time it took him to say that, but at least he took a decent amount of time to chew it. "He can't stay here," he finally said quietly.

"Who can't?" Damian asked on instinct before the meaning of the words fully processed. There were only three of them, and Jack couldn't have been talking about either of them. "Puppy?"

"Who else would I mean?"

"Why not?" Damian scrambled for an explanation. "You two seemed to be getting along really well. Is it because I asked you to walk him yesterday? Because I swear-"

"Damian-" Jack tried to cut in. He was too worked up to notice.

"-that won't be a regular thing. I shouldn't have asked you to do it when I told you I'd take care of him and it won't happen again-"

"Damian-"

"-and I'll stop letting him on the couch if it really bothers you that much. There's still a few days until the two weeks is-"

"Damian!" Jack snapped, and the harsh tone finally made him trail off. "He's not ours. I saw him on a lost dog poster," he continued, more gently now that he had Damian's attention.

Damian's mind went completely blank for a moment. The idea that Puppy had lived with anyone other than some monster that left puppies to die in dumpsters had never even crossed his mind. "Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure," Jack said and pulled something up on his phone. "It's a little hard to tell, since he's more… average-looking, but you're welcome to look. I took a picture of it."

Damian did. He hated to admit it, but it _did_ look a lot like Puppy. "Who even names a dog Muffin?"

"Krista, apparently."

Damian glanced at Puppy, who was sleeping in the middle of the couch. "What are the odds that I can talk you into just pretending neither one of us never saw this and keeping him for ourselves?"

"Not very high."

Despite his best efforts, Jack ended up calling her a few minutes later.

"I think we might have found Muffin," Damian listened as resignedly as he could to what he could hear of their conversation, "really- yeah, we found him almost two weeks ago, but- wait, what? Seriously?" The muffled voice chattered in Jack's ear for a moment and Jack shot him a brief smile that he wasn't entirely sure how to interpret.

"Hey," Jack said, smile coming back the moment he hung up, "I have some good news."

"What's that?"

"As it turns out, Muffin is a girl. And this one-" he tapped Puppy on the head- "is not. Plus Muffin didn't go missing until yesterday."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"So, he can stay here?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "No, Damian. I've been stress eating because I was so overjoyed about getting rid of him."

If the fact that someone else's dog was still lost somewhere bothered him, it didn't stop Damian from suggesting that they rent every outrageous-sounding movie that they could get their hands on and marathoning them all night in "victory." Damian probably wasn't going to drop the fact that he was right for a long time.

"What's his name, anyways?" Jack asked during the first movie.

"Who's name? The guy who just died?"

"Not in the movie! I mean-" he cut himself off, barely managing to catch himself before slipping and calling him 'Creature-' "the dog."

Damian gave him a confused look. "You mean Puppy?"

"No, the dog in the movie- yes I mean the puppy."

"His name _is_ Puppy."

The sheer idiocy of that name struck him speechless for a moment. Creature wouldn't even be a puppy for a year. What was Damian planning to do once he was an adult, rename him Dog? "That's a horrible name."

Damian shrugged. "I never claimed to be creative. What have you been calling him?"

Jack hesitated, and briefly considered lying. He never actually planned on Damian knowing that he called him Creature. "Creature."

Damian choked on his popcorn. "What the- that's horrible!"

"What? It was either that or Tripod."

"That's worse!" Damian flailed. "You don't name something based off of how many legs it has. What's wrong with you?"

Jack crossed his arms. "Well, I'm not about to start calling him Puppy, so you had better figure something out."

"Why do _I_ have to figure something out? He's your dog too now, you know."

The beginning of what could have been a long argument was cut off by the sheer stupidity that was tanks being destroyed by sentient tomatoes.

"Okay, this is just ridiculous."

"It's called _Attack of the Killer Tomatoes_ , Jack. What did you expect?"

"But _tanks_!"

…

"You know," Damian said offhandedly while the credits started to roll, "we could always name him Tomato."

"No."

…

 **Behold! I have written an entire multi-chapter fanfic without naming one of the characters. Will the boys call him Puppy? Creature? Tomato? Carrot? Pinecone? Who knows?**

 **(And yes,** _ **Attack of the Killer Tomatoes**_ **is a real movie. I've never actually seen it, but I really want to.)**

 **Anyways, this is where I planned to end things (it actually got longer than I meant it to… again. Fun fact: all my multi-chapter stories end up longer than I expect), but considering that I love the idea to pieces and have no sense of self-control, I'm probably going to write more about this general idea at some point. Whether or not that means it'll be a continuation of this or just little one-shots that I throw around is beyond me, though. And I** _ **do**_ **have other things that I really should work on, in terms of fanfics and real life, so… yeah. Let's just say it'll probably happen, but it'll be a while.**

 **(Wow, I put a lot of headcanons in here. Just noticing that as I'm proofreading, like jeez, me. What's gotten into you lately? All well, if I won't put my headcanons into fanfics, who will, right?)**

 **When will you hear from me next? I have no idea! Thanks for reading and all of the lovely reviews you've left for me. They're a ray of sunshine in my life :)**


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